It’s a re day when The Economist and Rachel Maddow agree. But, tax cuts swell the Federal budget deficit.

My complaints aren’t new and if you are a citizen of the blogosphere you’ve probably heard them all before. But the increasing absurdity of the economic debate in America has sent me over the edge. It’s as if, when discussing the economy, all Americans live in bizarro world. Tax cuts have become revenue-makers. Deficits are to be feared and ignored. And unemployment insurance, in the words of one congressman, has become a “necessary evil”. The Republicans’ plans are incoherent, the Democrats’ plans are incomplete and the public’s desires are unrealistic.

I also admire this comment:

Either Congress will enact the spending cuts and tax hikes recommended by President Obama’s deficit commission that will issue its report in December (conveniently after the midterm elections),

OR

Congress will remain at an impasse, in which Republicans claim that tax increases never raise revenue and Democrats claim that raising taxes on only those earning more than $250,000 a year can solve all of our fiscal problems. The economy will improve somewhat, improving our fiscal situation to the extent that our annual deficit will fall to “only” $700 billion to $1 trillion a year. Interest rates will go up as investors have better opportunities and the Federal Reserve gets scared about inflation, and Congress will have trouble funding the deficit. Eventually, Congress will be forced to enact hastily crafted tax increases and spending cuts in the same manner as TARP, and those changes will hurt the most vulnerable as well as the well-off worse than the gradual spending cuts and tax increases that the deficit commission will recommend.

Yes, in the long run, “We’re screwed”!

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